Blogging breakfast and Design Made Trade

What did you get up to today? I had a very lovely day out and I have the pictures to prove it!One of the somewhat questionable benefits of being underemployed is that I can gad about during the week when other people are out there actually earning money.I fully exploited this by spending 12 hours in the big smoke and am now exhausted, and you probably will be too once you finish reading this post, but I saw some exciting stuff so I wanted to get it out there before I forgot about it. My day started at the Royal Exhibition Building* which is hosting Design Made Trade as part of the State of Design festival. The lovely Pip from Meet Me at Mikes was speaking at a blogger breakfast with Lucy from The Design Files so a bevy of bloggers got to sit around and eat muffins and drink tea and coffee out of portable (ie sustainable) coffee cups from hookTurn (that we got to keep! bonus!) while we listened to their thoughts about blogging. A lovely looking lady in great jewellery and an impressive shaggy vest was sitting in front of me and after the talk she said “You’re Fourth Daughter, aren’t you?” and it turned out to be Poppy Katwho has made the trek to Style Wilderness a few times (and I’ve visited her blog too!). It was great to put a face to a name and we had a lovely chat about blogging and op shopping, and, you know, other important things in life. As if that was not exciting enough, we were also allowed to explore the Design Made Trade stalls where there was so much creative stuff going on that I’m not really sure where to begin – so much great design in interior decoration, accessories, furniture, crafty stuff… I had to limit myself or my camera would have had a seizure, so I’m only showcasing three accessory brands here. Being crap at this technical biz, I can’t label each set of photos, but the black acrylic jewellery with the orange or purple nebula print is by Drown. How cool are the earrings, as you may have guessed by now, I am quite partial to massive earrings so these ones definitely get my tick of approval.These next ones are by a brand called Gretchen Hillhouse Design, unfortunately I did not get to speak to the actual designer but they mainly seemed to be moulded porcelain or resin. My favourites were these from a brand called A Farmers Daughter (and no, not just because our brand names sound so similar!). They are all made from things like old tins, napkin rings, chains, records, and the sort of thing you find in op shops, but put together very creatively and some of them also have a bit of an ethnic vibe or some fringing going on. And you can never have too much fringing.

After all this amazingness I went to have lunch with a friend, then saw the European Masters exhibition at the NGV (is it just me or does Goethe look like he’s wearing a Snuggie??), shopped, revived myself with a hot chocolate and yo-yo biscuit, then met a friend for an exhibition opening and dinner. Then back at home I had to cut up about a billion tablets into 1/8 pieces and put thyroid cream on Suki’s ear. Yes, it’s a glamorous life I lead.*I know this looks like I could be anywhere in Europe but notice the gum tree on the left of the pic .. and the Australian flag flying? Also, check out this statue that incorporates both the animals from the Australian coat of arms, the kangaroo and the emu… I’d never noticed it before! Sometimes it’s fun being a tourist in your own city!

8 thoughts on “Blogging breakfast and Design Made Trade”

Looks like you had a fun day! And a very big one at that. I'll definitely have to check out Design Made Trade. Is it big? I've had a few uni exams in the Royal Exhibition Building and it's massive, so I wonder if they use the whole space.In reply to your comment on op-shop shoes, I am a 7.5 (or 38). Is that big? You must have little feet! What size are you? I will keep an eye out for you too!Always disappointed when i find shoes that don't fit!

I hadn't been in the building before so it was good to see the inside with all the lovely paintings. The exhibition is pretty big, enough to entertain for an hour at least!I'm a 36-37 in shoes (23-23.5cm when we're talking Japanese sizing… which is the most logical as it actually measures your feet!), pity I can't pass on my pre-loved footwear to you!

Thanks again for the comments… Evita, my life is not at all glamorous but I'm not going to post pics of me getting up five times a night to let my cat in/out/feed her etc.. well, unless people REALLY want to daydream about that??